MOTHER TERESA'S MESSAGE TO FOURTH UN WOMEN'S CONFERENCE

[Guest guest]

On 20 Mar 1999, Krishna Kirti wrote:

 

 

> I am not a christian - but the clarity, humility and WISDOM of Mother

> Theresa's message touched me - unfortunatley most of the Western mercenary

harridans at the Bejing Conference rejected it out of hand for being "off

message" - still that only serves to validate her words and criticism.

>

> --

> Phil

> (Politically Incorrect And Proud Of It)

 

 

 

Apparently it is not just a small bunch of reactionary neo-Vedic wannabes who

are considering these points. For instance, this article ran on the front page

of last Sundays Boston Globe -- a bastion of East Coast intellectualism. They

are well known for being politically correct, very liberal and humanistic.

 

---------

 

 

 

'Nonfeminist' authors going against the accepted gain

 

By Mary Leonard, Globe Staff, 03/14/99

 

WASHINGTON - Betty Friedan brands her as antiwoman. Erica Jong insults her as

''so ignorant.'' And withering e-mails call her names and trash her ideas in

terms too nasty to repeat. But Danielle Crittenden, the cause celebre, only

rolls her eyes and gives a so-what shrug as she revels in her new status as

belle of the antifeminist ball.

 

Crittenden, 35, is the author of ''What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us,'' a

provocative new book that lays the blame for everything that makes women

unhappy - in their sex lives, their marriages, their mothering, their jobs -

on 30 years of feminist orthodoxy that tricked a generation of females into

thinking equality with men would be a good thing.

 

''Our problems originate not in our oppression, but in our new freedom,''

writes Crittenden, a Toronto-born journalist transplanted three years ago to

Washington. ''Pretending that we are the same as men - with similar needs and

desires - has only led many of us to find out, brutally, how different we

really are.''

 

Her argument is old, but by being the polar opposite of the scowling Phyllis

Schlafly, the stylish, socially connected Crittenden aims her appeal at

20-somethings who take women's rights for granted but are not sure their

stressed-out working mothers were right when they said women could have it

all.

 

Crittenden, moreover, is part of a new cadre of media-savvy, ''nonfeminist''

conservatives who are telling women they can embrace more-traditional values,

find contentment, and even have some fun without donning a dowdy housedress

and becoming June Cleaver. Prenuptial abstinence, early marriages, children

cared for by nonworking moms, and midlife careers for women is their advice

for correcting what is wrong with the culture; what makes women guilty, tired,

and depressed; and what makes men irresponsible and confused.

 

In ''A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue,'' Wendy Shalit, a

23-year-old recent Williams College graduate, makes the argument for giving up

co-ed bathrooms and one-night hookups, and finding a new chastity. Women lost

the sexual revolution, along with romance, she says, and will be empowered

only if they hold back and wait for Mr. Right.

 

Lisa Schiffren, a New York writer and former aide to Vice President Dan

Quayle, says women must mind their biological clocks and set a goal of being

married by 25. Melinda Ledden Sidak, once a Washington lawyer in a

high-powered firm and now a stay-at-home mother and writer, suggests women can

be fulfilled only by putting their careers on hold to nurture children.

 

''Feminists shout, `How dare you say mothers stay home with their kids? The

women's movement is all about choices!''' Crittenden said in a feminist

falsetto. ''Well, we all know their ideology is empty and out of touch with

reality. Women can make good choices and bad choices, the right choices and

wrong choices, and the consequences affect their husbands and children.''

 

Nibbling at a club sandwich, Crittenden said she knows this because she has

met countless confused young women and studied 30 years of magazines such as

Glamour, Vogue, and Cosmopolitan that portray today's female as ''even more

miserable and insecure, more thwarted and obsessed with men, than the most

depressed, Lithium-popping suburban readers of the 1950s.''

 

The book is getting attention and making Crittenden the darling of

Washington's conservative cognoscenti. She was already on her way to its inner

circle as the wife of David Frum, a leading conservative thinker who writes

for Weekly Standard magazine. Until recently, she was editor of Women's

Quarterly, a cutting-edge journal of antifeminism published by the Independent

Women's Forum, a private policy group formed in 1991 to challenge Washington

conventional liberal wisdom.

 

Crittenden is also a charter member of the Censorious Matrons, a conservative

quasi-salon of well-heeled, nonworking Washington mothers who have pungent

political views but try not to take themselves too seriously, said Sidak,

another of the matrons.

 

''Danielle not only has written an important book, but she also is witty and

attractive, and that is an enormous advantage when it comes to getting these

ideas into the mainstream,'' said Kate O'Beirne, Washington editor of the

conservative National Review magazine. ''It's far more difficult for feminists

to portray her as a traitor to women when she comes across as so bright and

hip.''

 

This antifeminist wave also is breaking at an auspicious time: The yearlong

Monica S. Lewinsky scandal has made a virtue of sexual restraint, and feminist

leaders who staunchly defended President Clinton in spite of his bad behavior

have looked bewildered and not very credible, particularly on issues such as

sexual harassment.

 

Even in this climate, calling ''What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us'' contrarian

is an understatement. In it, Crittenden is nothing if not blunt:

 

On casual sex: ''So long as there is no readily understood and accepted way

for women to say `no' to men they like or hope to see again, women lose their

power to demand commitment from men.''

 

On delaying marriage: ''If a woman remains single past 30, she may find

herself tapping at her watch and staring down the mysteriously empty tunnel.

When a train finally does pull in, it is filled with misfits and crazy

men,like a New York City subway car after hours.''

 

On feminist wives: ''A woman who is accustomed to viewing herself as an

entirely liberated creature will be entirely unprepared to take full charge of

traditional chores like cooking or the laundry, no matter how helpful and

diligent her husband may be. Marriage is not as good a deal for men as it used

to be.''

 

On motherhood: ''No one compels us to have babies. The local humane society

will not let you adopt a puppy if you work full time. Why should our standards

for children be any less?''

 

Friedan, whose ''Feminine Mystique'' launched the women's movement in the

early 1960s, said Crittenden is completely off base. Research shows that women

are mentally, physically, and financially healthier today than they were 25

years ago; children raised by working parents are as well off as those with

stay-at-home mothers; and girls identify with the goals of the women's

movement as strongly as their mothers did, Friedan said.

 

''You get a lot more attention being an enfant terrible, going against the

grain, and saying shocking things,'' Friedan said. ''But let's face it: These

women are products and beneficiaries of the women's movement, and now they are

biting the hand that has fed them.''

 

Indeed, Crittenden looks suspiciously like a liberated woman. She said her

mother, a divorced journalist, taught her to be independent, and her

stepfather, a newspaper columnist, trained her ''by osmosis'' to be

conservative. She skipped college - ''it seemed pointless,'' Crittenden said.

She wrote for her stepfather's newspaper and then went headstrong at age 25

into a marriage of brainy equals that became a battleground over who did the

dishes and took out the garbage.

 

Crittenden said she did not come to her senses about feminism's bad bargain

for women until three years later, when her first child was born. ''To me, it

was a no-brainer,'' Crittenden said. ''Babies had to come before writing

books.''

 

She finds it outrageous that so many other women see staying home with young

children as a privilege rather than a right. Not all women, of course, have

what Crittenden's got: A helpmate husband who is adoring and very rich.

Children, ages 7 and 5, in private school. A maid to do housework. A novel in

the works, which she writes when she is not appearing on TV, doing a book

interview, or watching her youngsters.

 

''It's easy to dismiss me,'' Crittenden said, acknowledging she is awfully

judgmental about feminism for a woman who seems to reap its fruits. ''I want

to make it clear this is not a personal book.''

 

This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Sunday Globe on 03/14/99.

© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.

[Guest guest]

At 21:58 -0800 3/19/99, COM: Krishna Kirti (das) HDG (Baltimore, MD - USA)

wrote:

>

>This was a posting on the alt.feminism NewsGroup

 

That was a very sweet text. I don't know any feminists (including myself)

who have a problem saying that men and women are different. The problems

arise when we say that one is better or worse than the other.

 

In terms of "wanting it all": *No one*, man or woman, can have it all. We

all have to make choices and give up something.

 

Feminists just want to be given the option of choosing what to keep and

what to give up according to their own *individual* strengths and

weaknesses, which may or may not follow traditional gender stereotypes. I

can't for the life of me understand why that is so hard to understand or so

threatening to some.

 

Ys,

Madhusudani dasi